Tuesday December 18, 2007
Ladies and gentlemen, your county commission is out of its collective fucking mind: They just approved $347 million for a new Marlins stadium (more then double what the actual team will contribute!), overrode the UDB veto (to allow building past the development boundary, and note that Katy Sorenson, Rebeca Sosa, Carlos Gimenez, and Dennis Moss are the only ones that stood up against development), and generally passed the whole downtown overhaul that was proposed last year. I’m with them on the streetcar and on Museum park, but not much of anything else. Update: The budget for the 800-unit replacement to the Scott and Carver housing projects can suddenly accommodate only about 150 units. (thanks, Carlos)
Tags: county, development, politics, sports · Comment feed: RSS, atom
I was there. Nothing is set in stone except the port of Miami tunnel. All the other resolutions will have to pass the county commission independently. The Marlins’ stadium looks likely though from the amount of commissioners speaking in favor of it all throughout…
Hi,
sorry for talking offtopic, but I wanted to say that I just found out about this great website today and I have been reading it for five hours now. Keep up the good work! I will definitely come back more often!
Best,
Stefan
Gabriel~
It may not be finalized, but it’s not without meaning, and it’s fucked. And Sally Heyman can take that “I don’t support moving the UDB, I just wanted the state to give its input” (paraphrasing) and blow it out of her ass.
Also: I don’t think it’s accurate to say that the port tunnel is “set in stone” — there are way too many other pieces that that project depends on. I think it’s chances of getting built are sub-50%.
Stefan~
Thanks. That reminds me — I still have fixing to do on the archives… I don’t think the date archives show the linklog articles… oy vey. Also: nice site about miami, but it appears to be written in some foreign language. Perhaps my computer is configured incorrectly?
Carlos~
Unbelievable. Wait a second . . . isn’t the Fed in charge of that now? wtf?
Hi Carlos,
I’m writing in German so that not only my friends back home know what’s going on over here, but also my parents and grandparents. I was thinking about switching to English though so they can practice their english skills, hehe.
Have a good day,
Stefan
Another blow to the river of grass and the poor of this city. Is there some kind of requirement when taking the commissioners pledge to fatten the wallets of developers and turning a blind eye to the needy? Now wonder we are continuously ranked as one of the poorest cities in the US.
I’m all about the streetcar and museum park! Everything else is a waste of money in my book.
I do have a real problem with the push of the construction boundry. Leave the glades alone!!!
I’m curious why you all think a streetcar is a good idea? I don’t see much demand for the city bus, or the Metromover.
Was there any talk of where the steetcar would go?
Gus-
http://www.ci.miami.fl.us/MiamiStreetcar/pages/
Alesh- FDOT funding is secure, Miami-Dade Funding was approved in July, City of Miami approved their share last week. What’s missing?
Gus~
My understanding is that the Streetcar roughly connects downtown with midtown and the Biscayne corridor.
BTW, as far as I can tell the Metromover is pretty well used, both by real people getting around and by sightseeing tourists.
Gus-
People DO use Public Transportation, but ONLY if it’s completely convenient. New York is a prime example of this. It’s actually more difficult to deal with car ownership than take the subway or bus.
If you’ve ever tried to use mass transit in South Florida, you’d know what a clusterf***k it is; instead of a logical grid of intersecting routes, there are long and torturous twisting routes that try to serve too many purposes with one bus. Buses and trains don’t run often enough, or long enough into the night
Thanks for answering my questions, but I still see no demand for adding a streetcar route from Downtown to 40th Street.
I’m sure there are some people who think this will make the Design District more accessible, but will it?
For one thing, most people who go to the Design District do not live in Downtown. Also, from my experience, the type of person who is going to visit those ritzy interior design studios would not use public transportation.
Who will benefit from connecting the two places?
Amazing! Build a stadium for a team that has been gutted by it’s owner. Have you seen the attendance of a Marlin’s game? Maybe 12 people on a good day! If the City had done a remodelling and added some parking the UM could have stayed there with much better attendance numbers. As to the UDB vote, it makes me sick! The commision with the exception of the 3 brave commisioners that voted the right way are bought and payed for by the construction industry.
It’s not just a matter of connecting the two places — it connects all the spots along the way, too. Over the next couple of years all those condos are going to be finished up along Biscayne, bot in downtown and midtown, and anything we can do now to ease traffic should be considered. I think something like the streetcar is an important option, and yes, it’ll look sexy, too. The east coast rail-line should be used for transportation, too, but that’s something completely different — longer distances and higher speeds, with much much fewer stops.
Agree w/r/t the stadium…
i agree with you, alesh. the metro mover was my bread&butterfor a long time and i still prefer to park and ride it before looking for parking around downtown.
the stadium should accommodate soccer matches and if not, should be scrubbed before erected. baseball is not even a sport, it’s what the play on tvs in pubs when the music is too loud, and in case you haven’t noticed, the marlins suck. a cool new stadium is not going to save a sports franchise.
I can not believe that they overturned the mayors decision on the UDB. Absolutely tragic